Bugs or features (and other miscellaneous newbie questions)

I've been trawling the forums for some time but the search commando on this site is giving me a headaeche so I'll ask my (undoubtably already asked) questions in this new thread in stead and inform my inbox to breach for flaming.

1) Missiles.
Many missiles on a capital ship, base, baseship or other heavy weaponry are problematic in that they all fire simultaneously at the same target. I've tried to meddle with the strategy but haven't succeeded. What I'm I doing wrong?

2) Fighters and other incoming nastyness.
Point defence seems similarly problematic as indeed many posters are discussing so some length. I've grasped the ideas of various workarounds but I gotta ask; are Point defence weapons working as intended or is this a bug to by fixed in a patch within the forseable future?

3) Aliens.
They don't surrender. Again, everyone know this and it's no biggie but is it a bug or a feature?

4)Multiplayer.
In a PBEM game with manual filemovement and no simultaneous turns the last human player on the empire list is asked to fight every time an AI attack a human (regardless which human). Bug or feature? Shouldn't it be fought automatically or something so that the human player don't get insight into his opponent or even sabotages the combat...

Also, I haven't tried the simultaneous multiplayer game. How does that work in terms of, for example, attacking someone who has simultaneously moved away?

5) Patch.
The changelog for 1.19 looks promising; when will the next patch arrive? Do we have an ETA? (even an unconfirmed one from a person in the know would be nice).

Love the game, hope to love it more. Hope you can help.